Theres been a couple spotted orb weavers hanging out making webs in the chicken pens but this is the first orb weaver that has made a web on the porch this year. It is a golden orb weaver. The light attracts praying mantises at night and the porch finally had to get sprayed with poison because the carpenter ants were claiming the house, the porch, and the well house. I hate doing it because it also kills the orb Weavers and pretty much everything else insect, but I had to. I waited as long as I could, but any longer and the ants would’ve owned the property, not me. The house is a glorified shed. It’s my shed, with appliances and electricity, and I love it, but it’s a shed. It’s probably why I don’t panic every time the carpenter ants make a bid for global takeover, but I had no choice it had to be done. I let it go on long enough. The ants were basically taking over the shower and the kitchen. I figured out where they were coming in, poisoned everything, plugged up the hole, and replaced the damaged piece of wood. There have been no further ants in the house since, and the outside of the house and the porch are now void of them. And this morning, this beautiful golden orb Weaver showed up. So I had to stop and have a chat with her about all the places that I’ve now poisoned that she cannot touch. I don’t know how long she’ll live, because I poisoned the house and the porch, and she’s made a Web right above all the poisoned stuff, but at least I gave her a heads up. I don’t know why I love The or Weaver so much. I guess they’re excellent neighbors. They eat grasshoppers and crickets, which I’m thrilled about because I hate them, because they eat all my plants. Also, if you spend a lot of time around a web and never do anything that seems threatening, an orb weaver will become comfortable with you, and if you start putting food into the web, it will run down there and get it right after you put it in and see if it’s something it wants to eat. If it is, it starts spinning it up and if it’s not it drops it from the web. They never launch themselves or jump on you. They just kind of hang out in their web. And they’re pretty. I guess out of all the spiders Ive seen my instincts dont set off an alarm and tell me danger danger when I see an orb Weaver. I’ve been living here seven years now and I’ve kind of run out of Viking names to give the spiders. So I settled on a Japanese warrior name. Nakano. She is a beautiful specimen.
